Pilars of the Moon
by Evita82
Summary: A story that spans the three years of the Gryffindor Dueling Club. It shows maybe the darker side of the Scarlet and Gold. Very Unique! Please read


Disclaimer: I don't own Remus Lupin or any of JK Rowling's characters.  
  
A/N: This shall be my masterpiece. Ha, that's almost funny. I'll try my hardest with it. (  
  
Characters:  
  
Remus Lupin: Shy 5th - 7th year (throughout most of the story). Co- president of the Dueling club and a Marauder. Chief mastermind behind the Marauder's map and the many devious campaigns of the quartet. Shaggy brown hair and brown eyes, looks slightly older then he should. Not overly handsome but as all of the Marauder's do, can make easy girls swoon.  
  
Sarah Fesarit: Spunky 3rd- 5th year who with Remus runs the dueling club. She never was a social butterfly but she doesn't have a problem when she doesn't know many people. Is convinced that she'll be a great adventurer in Grand Egypt after Hogwarts, marry a rich ministry member, and spend the rest of her days as a housemother raising her beautiful, smart children. (All and all she's quite a dreamer) She has short black hair, brown eyes and a winning smile.  
  
LaRay Kral: Perpetually gloomy duel club treasurer and one big pain in the butt for the club because of his morbid attitude in classes and dueling matches. Dull brown hair and clouded hazel eyes most of the time. Towered over most students and teachers by his 3rd year at Hogwarts.  
  
James Potter: Escritoire for the dueling club and leader of the infamous Marauders. While he maintains a good social life and popularity throughout most of the school (minus the Slytherins) James is never able to achieve his life's conviction up this point: Lily. *you know how he looks*  
  
Disa Stammler: Hopeless 'member-at-large' for the dueling club or anything that has to do with spells but has a knack for writing. While Disa is a bit dim, she has enough suaveness to govern the school newspaper like a well- oiled apparatus tuned for one purpose: hot and juicy gossip.  
  
Summary:  
  
~*~ Set over 3 years this story tells the tale of a struggling Gryffindor dueling club and the friendships, loves, and hates forged through these rocky years. Centered mainly on the co-presidents, Remus and Sarah, we get a unique perspective of the deep rivalry between members of the same house, the corrupt alliances and sinister plans that some students will swoop down to, to win the Gryffindor Dueling Championship. ~*~  
  
Author's Note: Here is definitely a different story then what I am use to writing. Mind you that this is not a romance between Remus and Sarah during there school years. While they both care immensely for each other, they are both too occupied with other things to every notice each other in a romantic light. Don't get the wrong idea if they happen to attend balls together or have late night chats by the common room fire- it's all platonic. At least for the school years. (  
  
~*~ b Pillars on the Moon b ~*~  
  
iPale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings. i  
Horace (65 BC - 8 BC), Odes  
  
iEvery human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making. i  
Helen Hayes  
  
For eighteen years chocolate has been my only comfort. The silky dark texture but harsh taste reminds me of her. So inviting and rich but the after taste has left me a bitter man dreaming of the time we had. While I never held you in my arms or whispered dark intents as many thought we should or were destine too, I discovered that romantic love was beyond us always but we did have something unique.  
  
I remember feeling utterly and entirely exhausted during my school days when I was dueling club president with her. I almost longed for the full moon; I considered it more or less a vacation during the bumping months when the club tinkered on anarchy. Her relentless grilling the dueling cabinet never help the stress level either. However, the flame in her eyes was always genuine when she would prowl back and forth, barking out notes to James and ideas to the rest of us so the Gryffindor could finally win the house dueling cup. We would have to work tirelessly, practice as if our pathetic lives depended on it, but above all believe in ourselves. This was her platform for three years until the club finally folded and I left Hogwarts but I'm sure, wherever she is, whether on the regal Nile or in the sweltering Sahara, she's telling someone right now those exact three things.  
  
Yes, Sarah is somewhere out there finding great thing to accomplish. She dreamed a great many things, even of her failures but I have no doubt that she's happy. Sometimes from out of nowhere, a memory floats to the surface to remind me of my life since all of it is in my past and hers.  
  
The sun was sinking below the faded purple horizon at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for another day. The last breathe of daylight Dinner dishes of steaming mutton, beef stake pie dripping with gravy, tender legs of turkey along with hundreds of other dishes were passed from student to student in an air of savage hunger. Magic ran deep through all of the students at this school but magic wasn't the only thing they all in common. Pride, the perpetual sense of the inner hierarchy and the reverence that accompanied it was an unspoken facet of the school. While this didn't ban inter-year friendships, it did prohibit random first years or the such to sit at the best parts of the house tables. This unspoken law kicked younger students off library tables, out of quidditch try-outs, off the best couches and tables in the common room among many other things. However, on this particular day one 3rd year crossed the invisible barrier and situated herself amid the Gryffindor 5th year boys. Thus, she started an internal war that would burn for the next 3 years and in the hearts of many, a lifetime. .  
  
I don't know what I was on that day. Was it a nerve-steeling potion? Might have been but I think perhaps it was the last flicker of my childhood innocence that leapt to life when I plopped down firmly in the 5th year boys section of the table. It never occurred to me that most of these boys weighed 75 to 100lbs more then me and that I could be seriously injured, any more then the fact that my uniform vest was on backwards that particular day. I was on a mission and when I am on a mission, I must be blind or something because I will walk into hippogriff stampede. Not that these boys were hippogriffs (as much as they smelt like them) it was just that I had entered 'under-classmen-dead-zone'.  
  
It is a well-known fact for as long as anyone can remember that Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a school of great honor, kudos, scholar and a profound hierarchy that would make the papacy seem tame. Punishment for crossing this invisible but very perceptible line would differ depending upon the severity of the offence. First year's ransacking the prefect's bathroom's or freeze drying the common room with muggle dry ice would usually result in a trip into the invisible closet on third floor. The kids would usually show up two or three weeks later babbling only in Cornish. Third years jinxing the quidditch balls would usually turn up laughs but it was the quidditch team you would have to watch out for. Nothing like going to a quidditch match to find your knickers waving in the breeze and underneath the flagpole with a large erected sign "THESE ARE _ _ _ _ _ KNICKERS BROUGHT TO YOU CURTISY OF _ _ _ _ _ _" And so on.  
  
The punishment for a 14 year old girl to situate herself in the middle of 20 or so 15 and 16 year old boys might have been welcomed under certain circumstances (i.e. I was extremely hot and had a 36DD rack but thank the powers that be I don't) but unfortunately for me, I wasn't welcome.  
  
I had just dug into the crispy crust of my chicken potpie when four boys sauntered to the slight void area around me. I was just briefly wondering if I had put deodorant on since no one wanted to sit next to me when the tallest black haired boy snarled at me.  
  
"What the hell do you think you're bloody doing taking our seats?" This was James Potter. He crossed his arms across his front and glared at me. He was the one I needed to talk to, to pull off my mission successfully.  
  
"There's plenty of seats around me. Maybe I smell or something." I was playing dumb on purpose. I sniffed my armpits quite unceremoniously and when I was quite certain it wasn't I smelling like the height of puberty went back to my pie.  
  
"No, I think you missed my point kid. I'll put it bluntly. Go sit with your own year and gender for that matter. Aren't boys gross at your age?" He sniggered at his own joke obviously pleased with himself.  
  
I took a swig of pumpkin juice and looked up at the four. The two I knew as Sirius Black and James Potter stood firmly at getting me out of their seats but the other two in the back looked uncomfortable about 'pushing' this third year around. As if on cue the 5th year Lucious Malfoy sauntered past the Gryffindor table towards his own looking rather smug.  
  
"Only gross ones like that." I pointed to the blonde's back "Other then that I'm pretty mature about the opposite sex." It killed me to see him getting uncomfortable on the mention of sex. The random fact that males going through puberty thought about intercourse every seven seconds popped up. Well I guess he was set for another seven seconds. I scraped a few of the corn kernels that fell out of my now finished pie together into a neat pile.  
  
"Point taken kid but come on, get outta here. There's a couple open spots further down." Sirius Black was leaning foreword on the table looking rather amused by James' discomfort.  
  
"What if I told you I had a reason to sit here?" I was now forming a separate pile for the peas not looking up at the boys.  
  
"And that would be?" For the first time in my life, I heard the small fat boy talk or rather snarl. Paul .Pat. Peter, something with a P was standing behind Sirius looking oddly brave.  
  
"Nothing that would interest a wizard without talent." I rumbled back. I put my fork carefully on my pile careful not to knock my vegetable piles over, looked up, gestured for them to have a seat then folded my hands in front of me on the table.  
  
"Come on, that was harsh." James tried to snap at me but he was struggling to keep a straight face.  
  
The four cast suspicious looks at me but state down opposite me.  
  
"What do you have in mind. what's your name kid?" James asked.  
  
"My name is Sarah Fesarit. I'm a third year and I have a proposal for you and your friends. I have watched you for 2 years and I could hardly not notice that you four hold sway with Dumbledore and the other staff." I took an effective pause at this point for another swig of my increasingly warm pumpkin juice. After a very unlady like burp I continued.  
  
"As you are well aware dark witches, wizards, and creatures have been quite active since the mid 60's and what I have in mind might help us. Maybe not save ours lives but gives us a chance to fight." Another gulp of juice. "Mmm, that's too warm. Pass me the flask if you could. Thank you." I carefully filled my glass with freshly iced juice and took a sip. "Yes this is better. Have a glass, boys, while it's cold." I offered the flask to the shy Remus Lupin who had obviously decided that third year or no he was eating. His plate was almost full and his hand was on his empty glass.  
  
"Where was I? Oh yes, the chance fight and uphold our honor. We need to use defensive magic, practice it as if our pathetic lives depended on it and of course believe in ourselves. It's the only way we will stand a chance in the dark times that loom ahead." I eyed a cherry pie that had appeared a foot down the table wondering if I dared eat a piece.  
  
"Will you get to the point?" James said. He, Sirius and Peter were now following Remus' example and were starting to dig into lunch.  
  
"Fine. I need you and your friends to make a request to Dumbledore. He's a great man but he holds a soft spot for you four. Will you pass me that cherry pie, err, Remus. This was the first time I faltered in my 'no- fail' plan but it was just for a pie. And from the looks of it I had caught all four of there attentions at the mention of Dumbledore having a soft spot for them.  
  
"And the request is?" Sirius leaned foreword looking intently into my dark brown eyes.  
  
"Request that Hogwarts, as a school, could start house dueling clubs. I have basic platforms written out to propose to Dumbledore and the school governor's. It'll have to go though them but I think if enough people get behind you four we can have it passed. The last dueling club died out 50 some years ago so I think we are in due time for one." The four looked dumbfounded sitting across from me. I started sniggering actually. Outsiders would have thought I had asked them to lay dragon eggs. I knew the job of talking in front of the school bored was the part that they were scared of.  
  
"T..the... school bored?" Sirius loosened his collar and set his fork down.  
  
"Well, definitely not the bored of Sugar Quill Inc. Yes, the school bored. But don't worry I have the abstracts of the dueling club aims already to hand out. All you have to do is state your request." I pulled the half-empty pie plate back towards me and dug a second scrumptious piece out and onto my plate. I spotted a plate of whipped cream down the table a bit and hollered at two seventh year prefects to "push it down yonder". I dolaped liberal amounts on my pie.  
  
"Will you be there if we get asked questions? And what part do we get to play if we get the dueling club passed?" James asked through a mouthful of steak. Sirius nodded in agreement, Peter shrugged and Remus raised an expectant eyebrow.  
  
"It'll get you on the ballot for the dueling club student society but no further. I'll get you the general rules that former Hogwart's clubs had before. The most successful clubs were governed democratically; we'll vote were you'll be in the society. No special favors, sorry. We can't start that." I answered him. "So, will you do it?" I licked my fingers of the whipped cream and gazed evenly at each boy in turn.  
  
"We'll do it." Remus answered. The other three looked aghast. "What class do you have next? Do we have time to run get the abstract now?"  
  
"Only Divinations and oh well that crab has already "foreseen" I'll be late eh? So yeah, let's go get it." I was beaming inside. Not only had the plan of talking directly to the Marauders I had at least one of them excitedly talking next to me on what a great plan this was and how he was looking foreword to it and yadda, yadda, yadda. I had never heard Remus talk this much in the common room.  
  
I didn't know it then but a few years later after I had left Hogwarts, I had started my first true friendship on the walk. With a nod I handed him my packet of information and told him to read it over when we got back to the common room. I watched him exit the common room again deeply absorbed by the list of spells I had in mind and smiled. My dream was coming true, an actual dueling club at Hogwarts for the dark times ahead.  
  
Yes, I knew that I was doing the right thing, despite the fact I might be training the enemy (Slytherins) with curses and spells but the fact that I was arming the defenseless. I grabbed my sack and darted off to Divinations, I was already 10 minutes late and I couldn't afford detention, I had a mission in action.  
  
A/N well I personally don't think that turned out the way I wanted it to but I was alright I guess. Please give me feedback by reviewing. I didn't have a beta but I do have several people that would have beta'ed for me but I was to lazy to wait. I'll develop Sarah quite a bit more and the Maurader's as well. Mind you again that this is NOT a romance during the better part of this story! It might never be. if you have any suggestions please feel free to tell by reviewing or emailing me at panza102@hotmail.com or adding me to your MSN. 


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